


we've got a war to fight

by Grave



Series: Kiss/Shag/Touch Fic Meme [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pre-Movie(s), Pre-Serum Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-16
Updated: 2014-08-16
Packaged: 2018-02-13 08:28:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2143926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grave/pseuds/Grave
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fic Meme Prompt: Frustrated Kiss</p>
            </blockquote>





	we've got a war to fight

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, anon, thanks for you request! You couldn’t have known that this was really hard for me because I haven’t even seen the newest Captain America movie yet and I am an exclusive Steve/Tony shipper when it comes to the Avengers and actually not a big fan of Steve/Bucky! BUT I am a big girl and tried my best :D No worries, this will really be Steve/Bucky and I won’t be cheating!
> 
> But eventually it became more a homage to Steve and the over all tone became Frustration, the kiss was rather a break from that…so yeah I have been cheating after all…a little in my interpretation of the prompt ;D!

Sometimes even getting up was a challenge. No, sometimes is wrong here, scratch that. A lot of times even getting up is a challenge. 

 

He counts his day on his ten fingers, all the things he can do, all the things he won't be able to do. Getting out of bed would already take one finger away, reminding his lungs how to work together with every muscle in his body. His body moans and aches in the small joints between his bones and he slowly proceedsto massage life back into his hands, his thighs until they don't feel as stiff anymore and he can get up. It takes mostly fifteen minutes and sometimes it takes up to an hour. He learned to only see the latter days as a challenge. 

 

There are mornings he doesn't want to get up, where he lies on the back, stretches out his arms to the ceiling until they crack and stares at the space between his fingers. 

 

Jogging the five minutes until his asthma kicks in around the block or do a little exercise for then until his heart stings - takes one - going into town to get the groceries you could still get - takes one -getting his flat into a clean state, washing is clothes, preparing dinner, letting himself be dragged out by Bucky to watch a baseball game over the fence - takes one, takes one, takes one.

 

At the end of the day, none of his fingers are left and he makes sure he looses at least five in a fight he claims he picks because it's the right thing to do, when deep down he knows it's equal parts selfish. But it feels better, to look at his hands and see how his left pinky crooks, because he had it broken and how his knuckles bruise red and angry and take twice as long to heal. He thinks it's nice to see what a weak frail assemble of bones and skin his body is and not have the true monster hiding somewhere between his ribs, invisible. 

 

He will get up every morning anyway. At least Bucky will always make sure of it. Steve knows that this is worry for his weak friend who probably will never see the better part of thirty, making sure that Steve is still alive and hadn't just withered away in the night. 

Steve jokes about it every time, with a wry smile »Still here, still breathing, don't you worry, Buck.« Bucky will grin every time and shrug, and give him a soft shove like he is not afraid at all that Steve will break in two. 

 

When Bucky arrives the mornings get a little better, the day feels a little better. With Bucky there it is like there is at least an extra five fingers. 

 

 

But sometimes even Bucky gets fed up with him. It’s when Steve did everything in his power to run down walls and it only results in both of them bloodied by another fight. The war is coming, but Steve doesn’t feel that this is anything new. He grew up fighting a war with himself and there will probably never come the day when he won’t firmly believe that any evil in this world can be beaten with a good, honest heart, but he won’t be able to beat himself. 

He cannot fight this. 

So he wants to _be_ good, so he wants to _do_ good but there are never enough fingers on his hands, especially not when Bucky is angry with him because he lost a fucking tooth in his last fight and he has a pretty big bruise around his left eye, a split eyebrow and no matter how hard Steve tries, somehow Bucky always comes out worse, makes sure of it. It’s in his nature to protect him. 

 

»You are always angry, Steve, always so darn angry. Angry and stubborn.«

 

It’s true, but it’s his fuel. Anger and stubborn and an endless will to fill the space between his fingers. With his breath rattling in his lungs he looks at Bucky. He guesses he would be jealous, if Bucky would be anyone else but Bucky. The Bucky who had suddenly grown so tall and became a man, while Steve stagnated. There was a time when they saw eye to eye.

 

»I’m sorry.«, he says and doesn’t mean it. 

 

»Don’t ever be sorry. I don’t like you sorry. I mean, what fun would I have all day without you getting in all kinds of trouble?« 

 

While everything else, everyone else, was always complicated to him, Bucky never was. While the girls tried to smile and findtheir way out of paying attention to him, the military ignored him and he became a joke on the streets, Bucky _never_ ever _stopped_ paying attention to him. 

 

When Steve tries to take the cool cloth from Bucky’s hands, clean his bloody eyebrow and face, cool his split lip and keep the eye from swelling, Bucky would never let him. Like even now he needed to take care of both of them. 

 

»Let me do it.«, Steve demands and as always when Bucky tries to hide from him he laughs.

 

»I can do it myself.« 

 

»I want to do it!«

He lost all ten fingers already and still he musters the strength to keep Bucky’s head in place with one hand and with the other he forces the cloth out of the other’s hands. Of course, if Bucky had wanted to, he could have pushed Steve away, but he doesn’t. He never pushes Steve away. He always takes care of Steve.

 

And Steve just wants to be able to do the same one day. 

 

Carefully he brushes the blood away until his hand starts to shake and hurt. He must have sprained something when he hit that one guy. 

 

»You know, Steve, you can do anything you want.«

 

It’s a lie. It’s really, really a fundamental lie. He wants to not wake up exhausted, he wants to fight for what is right and just, he wants to help the people around him like they have always helped him, he wants to have the strength to do what’s right. But there are small things he can do.It’s a lie and still he grins. »Yeah, you bet I can. The day will come and I will save your sorry ass, Bucks.«He contemplates for a moment. 

 He leans forward and kisses the part where Bucky’s lip is swollen and he can have the taste of blood at the tip of his tongue. 

 

 

In the future when lies become truth, when his only enemy doesn’t turn out to be his body anymore but what he still _thinks_ his body is - there is a whole bucket list of things he will regret. One of them will be how he only ever kissed Bucky out of spite, born out of frustration and anger and stubbornness. 

 

There will always be the mornings where he stretches his arms towards the ceiling and look at the space between his fingers. That space used to belong to Bucky.

 


End file.
